Acting with the World

Andrew Pickering is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Philosophy at Exeter University and author of The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science and The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. He is the coeditor of The Mangle in Practice: Science, Society, and Becoming, also published by Duke University Press.

• Preface  ixIntroduction. Acting on or with the World  11. Eels: The Dance of Agency  162. The Mississippi: Enframing and Letting Go  203. Erosion: Poiesis  294. The Colorado  325. Water: A New Paradigm  466. Natural Farming  567. A Choreography of Fire  778. Spirits  91Conclusion. Poiesis  97Notes  107References  135Index  151

“Andrew Pickering is a wonderful writer as well as a consistently original thinker who weaves together empirical materials and conceptual sophistication in a way that is both instructive and a pleasure to read. He speaks to current concerns with the environmental and climate crisis with a distinctive and important voice. Acting with the World is a book to enjoy and to be provoked by.” - Andrew Barry, author of (Material Politics: Disputes along the Pipeline) “Rethinking our ways of addressing and acting with nature and the natural world in a time of ecological catastrophes, Andrew Pickering provides a way for us to (re)imagine utopia. Few books engage in the challenging matters of biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change as clearly, deeply, and beautifully as Pickering’s. It is hard to overestimate Acting with the World’s potential importance and influence.” - Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, author of (Our Genes: A Philosophical Perspective on Human Evolutionary Genomics)